This is the inspiration video we kicked January off with. We had hoped to make this a radical year for volunteerism. Some would say we had 2020 vision.
Just a regular January day in our office with our RISE volunteers
No volunteer job is ever too small when the end result is helping others
Our community takes action on MLK Day 2020
Just a regular February day in our office with a teen volunteer group
We made news at the start of March with this special announcement
And then the world changed and all our efforts shifted towards our emergency pandemic response and the launch of the Virtual Volunteer Center
But the show must go on and in April we celebrated the resilient spirit of volunteerism in the biggest way we could
And we found ways to continue to inspire local leadership
But we also knew many were feeling stuck and looking for ways they could help so we made it even easier to volunteer from home by finding new opportunities to feature in the Virtual Volunteer Center
And in June we began to re-evaluate the role that civic action and volunteerism can play in achieving equity and systemic reform and what actionable steps we could take to empower our community to support these efforts
Our first LW virtual pop-up event brought together local leaders
And we gathered at the end of June to celebrate the passing of the torch
In July we heard from a new class of leaders to emerge during a time of change and opportunity
And we welcomed the first campers ever to get on the bus to Camp Vollo
In September we turned a day of service into a region-wide event of fighting back against the critical spike in food insecurity caused by COVID-19
We also began to look back at our 70-year legacy as we prepared for our biggest celebration ever
And we dug up some of our favorite clips from the past like this one
And this one
And oh boy did we celebrate
And then in October, our team supported one of the biggest virtual employee action days ever that took place here in our community thanks to the annual Day For Doing Good event from Regeneron
And we were happy to get outside this fall to support the New Rochelle Cleanup Day that had volunteers taking action at five parks along the waterfront
To kick off December we saw an amazing show of what local generosity in action looks like
And we celebrated our sixth Giving Tuesday #Bridge2Give campaign with lohud
And used our latest podcast episode to inspire generosity
And what do we have to show for all this?
Our biggest year of impact ever
We don't know what's next in 2021
But we do know we need your support to continue to build connected and resilient communities